IF SHE ONLY KNEW WHAT I’VE DONE FOR HER
It’s always the sweaty handprint that gives you away. The pressure print I call it. I don’t know why no one ever thinks about it. It’s where you brace yourself because you’re unaware of what will come over you. The rush of adrenaline that surges without warning and knocks you off your feet like a shock from an electrical outlet. No matter how careful you are, you can’t stop your hands from sweating and you damn sure can’t find that moment you need to catch your breath. It is after all, the first time you’ve killed someone. Not even a trained assassin can keep their body temperature normal at the sight of fresh blood caused by their own hands. Sweaty palms, sweaty forehead, it’s just the body’s way of calming itself down after the deed is done but it happens so quickly that it produces a slight bit of vertigo. That’s when you leave the one piece of incriminating evidence behind that proves you were there. With some, it may be the handprint on top of a desk or a chair they grabbed to brace themselves. For me, it was the handprint on the wall.
Pamela blew the last drag of smoke from her cigarette into the cold, brisk air. She stood in the shadows across the street from the building the body was found. The officer standing guard looked young and easily persuadable. She would have no problem getting back inside but she had to be efficient. Nothing could be left to chance.
Pamela pinched the end of her cigarette and placed the butt in her pants pocket. Norfolk
“How are you doing, Officer?” Pamela said as she approached the uniform cop standing in front of the condemned building. She pulled her Pea coat tight around her neck to protect herself from the sharp wind.
The officer put his hand up and blocked Pamela’s path inside the single-story apartment. “Ma’am, you can’t enter.”
Pamela flashed her credentials and quickly introduced herself.
“My name is Federal Agent Pearce. I was in the area when your call came across the radio.” Pamela sidestepped his defense tactic and entered the vacant room to survey the scene. “You’re the only one here?”
“Yes ma’am. Um, so why are the feds interested in a dead homeless guy?”
“There have been a few dead homeless people popping up all over the Hampton Roads cities. Mayor thinks there may be something behind it.”
“Like a serial killer?” the officer asked surprised.
“May be. Can you show me where the body is?”
“Sure.”
Pamela followed the officer to the back bedroom in the left corner of the house. The body of a male victim was lying face down on the floor covered by a thick, dirty blanket.
Everything was just as she left it hours before; cracked window, mouse droppings, dead mice and rat poisoning next to a partially eaten hamburger, French fries and soft drink.
“Yep, this might be my guy,” Pamela said. “These same items were found next to the other bodies, too.”
“I don’t remember seeing other cases of dead homeless people…”
“You wouldn’t,” Pamela cut him off. “Every jurisdiction has their own detectives handling the cases. It’s not until unsolved cases like these get filtered up to my department and we see the common threads. That’s why I’m here.”
Pamela slipped on a pair of latex gloves and knelt down beside the body. She made sure her knee didn’t touch the carpet and accidentally leave any fibers behind.
“I already checked his pockets,” the officer said. “I didn’t find any ID on him. He was probably squatting here to keep warm.”
Pamela smiled. She knew exactly where her handprint rested but she needed privacy to wash it away.
“I need you to leave the room so I can see if this death has anything new I can add to my profile of this killer.”
“I, I don’t know,” the officer stuttered. “Maybe we should just wait ‘til a detective gets here.”
Pamela stood to her feet and got right in the officer’s face. He could see his own beads of sweat forming on his brow in the reflection of her dark sunglasses.
“I know this is out of protocol but let’s just say the NPD detectives aren’t too happy the feds were called in to investigate deaths in their jurisdiction. I need to do my analysis before they get here, before the territory wars begin.”
“Well…”
The hard lines in Pamela’s face softened. The tips of her ears and nose finally warmed up and returned to their natural shade of sandy brown. The clear gloss coating her pink lips curled into a smile. “I’ll owe you. Let’s say, dinner on me. You can be the first to show me around town.” The officer was still hesitant so Pamela read his nametag and became more personable. “Officer Curtis, catching this guy is going to be big news and I’m sure your commander, maybe even the Mayor will be the first in line to give you a commendation for helping me find this bastard.”
Officer Curtis rubbed his chin and smiled. “A commendation, huh?”
“We are talking about a serial killer.”
“Okay. I’ll give you your space, as long as I can still get that dinner date.”
Pamela placed her hand on his arm and rubbed gently. Her charm was irresistible to many. “Of course and I’ll even give you a tip to get on the detective’s good side when they get here.”
“What’s that?”
“Question anybody you see outside close to the street. See if you can find any witnesses who may have seen something?”
“In this neighborhood?”
“You never know. There may still be one good Samaritan out there.”
After the officer left, Pamela reached into her coat pockets. From her left, she pulled out a folded washcloth and from her right, she pulled out a twelve-ounce soda bottle filled with bleach.
If she only knew what I’ve done for her. Only then would she realize how far I’ll go to keep her…
Forty-five minutes later, two detectives parked in front of the building where they received the 911 call about a dead body.
“I thought they said foot patrol called in the DOA,” Detective Ross said to his partner as they looked at the unmanned building.
“It’s too cold for this shit today,” Detective Donahue groaned. The state issued leather gloves he wore made it hard for him to use the push-talk car radio so he handed it to Ross. “Call dispatch and find out what’s going on.”
As Ross placed the call to dispatch, Donahue tapped him on the knee and pointed through the windshield at a uniformed cop across the street.
“Cancel that dispatch,” Ross said into the radio. “We found him.” Ross placed the radio down and exited the car. “What the hell is he doing over there?”
Donahue turned the engine off and squeezed his way from behind the wheel of the car. “We always end up with the ambitious pricks that want to do more than their job requires.”
Ross waved at the officer to get his attention. The officer could see the gold shield attached to Ross’s belt and hurried over.
“You the officer who called in the dead body?” Ross asked.
“Yes sir,” he stated proudly. Glancing down at his notepad, he said, “I canvassed the area for witnesses but no one’s seen anything.”
“Just show us where the body is,” Donahue mumbled.
As Officer Curtis led them to the apartment, he replied, “An Agent Pearce is already in the room doing a profile analysis for the serial killer.”
“Agent Pearce?” Ross said confused.
“What serial killer?” Donahue asked.
“She said FBI was called in because there was a serial killer targeting homeless people in the Hampton Roads area.”
Both detectives looked at each other before urging Officer Curtis to hustle.
Officer Curtis guided the detectives to where he left Agent Pearce. When they entered the room, there was no one in sight.
“She was just here a minute ago.”
Ross put his hands on his hips and surveyed the scene. Donahue took out a sixteen-ounce water bottle from the inside pocket of his trench coat and spit tobacco juice from his chewing tobacco into the container. He wiped the lingering drool hanging from his freshly trimmed beard with the back of his hand then secured the top back on the bottle.
The cold air from the open window sent chills down Ross’s spine. The faint smell of bleach saturated the air.
“Whoever she was, she came back to clean up,” Ross said putting on a pair of latex gloves. He handed a pair to his partner who snatched them and popped himself from the recoil.
“Damn it!”
“Chill out, Donahue.”
“Chill out? We’re not gonna find anything now!”
“We know one thing,” Ross began as he picked over the leftover food and rat poisoning, “it’s definitely a murder and we probably wouldn’t have gathered that from what I see here.”
“Why’s that?” Officer Curtis asked.
“Take a look,” Ross waved him over. “If he’s a squatter, he knew abandoned buildings would have rodents, especially if he was storing food here. You don’t need a lot of rat poisoning to kill someone. If this so called fed didn’t show up and through suspicion our way, we might’ve assumed he consumed the poison by accident trying to keep the rats away.”
“So, she actually helped us out by showing up.” Officer Curtis sounded relieved.
“Don’t be too happy there,” Donahue grunted. “You still let her back in to clean up whatever she left behind.” Donahue turned to Officer Curtis and barked, “Did you really think there’d be a serial killer on the loose and we not know about it?”
“She said no one had pieced it together yet because different detectives were working the cases across the district. It made sense.”
“It made sense,” Donahue repeated sarcastically. “Of course it made sense to someone as green as you.”
“She showed me her credentials, sir. She seemed legit.”
“Tell that to the Captain when you get back to the station, alright? See if he buys it.”
Ross shook his head. He’s seen his share of young officers making mistakes but this one took the cake.
“I need you to tell me everything that looks different now then when you first entered the scene. She might’ve cleaned up but she may’ve also come back to get something she left behind.”
Officer Curtis slowly rotated his head from right to left. “The only thing I noticed is that the window was only cracked when I first got here and now it’s wide open.”
“Probably how she escaped. She knew she couldn’t come back out through the front. Anything else?”
Officer Curtis took his time looking around the room. He scanned the body from head to toe but nothing else looked different. “No sir. That’s it.”
“How long you been on the job, kid?” Donahue asked nonchalantly.
“Three years.”
Donahue cleared his mouth of tobacco juice again. “You might wanna start looking for a new line of work.”
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